Bipartisan Resolution Reaffirming U.S. Support for the Belarusian Pro-Democracy Movement Unanimously Passes U.S. Senate

Statement

U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) applauded the unanimous passage of his bipartisan resolution reaffirming U.S. support for the Belarusian pro-democracy movement. The resolution calls for free and fair elections, reaffirms bipartisan support in the Senate for the pro-democracy movement, free media and the Belarusian people and condemns Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's acts of transnational repression. The resolution was cosponsored by U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Ed Markey (D-MA), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN). Portman and his colleagues introduced this resolution last August, on the one-year anniversary of the fraudulent presidential election in Belarus that installed Alexander Lukashenko for a sixth term.

"I am pleased this bipartisan resolution, which shows that the United States stands in solidarity with the people of Belarus and continues to condemn the brutal Lukashenko regime in the strongest of terms, has passed the Senate unanimously," said Senator Portman. "The people of Belarus deserve free and fair elections and a democracy where their sovereign rights are respected and I continue to support their efforts in achieving those goals."

Last June, Portman traveled to Lithuania as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation in Eastern Europe, where he met with Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis to discuss Lukashenko regime's increasing human rights abuses against political opposition. Senators Portman and Shaheen spoke with NPR to discuss their meeting with Tsikhanouskaya and what the U.S. can do to push back against Belarus.

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